He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

as he kneeled in the middle of the highway with half of the Shadow Falls Police force looking on.
    “What condition?” he asked, his voice tight, uncertain.
    She gave him a smile with all of her love poured into it. “Tell me you love me again. I’ve waited so long to hear that.”
    The worry faded from his eyes and his brow smoothed out. “I love you, Mandy. I love you because you’re a beautiful, caring person inside and out. I love you because you believe in me, because you make me want to be a better man. I love you because you’re intelligent, and funny and loyal and sexy. I love you because—”
    “I only have one question for you, Logan.”
    He paused, looking uncertain again, and it awed her that a man like him, so strong and appealing he stole her breath—it awed her that he could face her with all her scars and troubles and think for one minute that it was possible she might not want him. She was humbled by his little speech, by the love in his eyes, and she realized that everything in her life that had happened had led her to him, and that she wouldn’t change a thing if it meant she wouldn’t have met him.
    The tears flowed freely now and she had to wipe her eyes to be able to see him. “What took you so long to realize you loved me?” she whispered. “I’ve loved you since that first time in my kitchen when you pulled me back from a nightmare. The answer is yes, Logan. It’s always been yes.”
    His dark eyes blazed into hers and his hands shook as he slid the ring onto her finger. “I’ve loved you since the moment you squeezed my foot in your door,” he said as he rose to stand before her.
    She smiled, then sobered as he pulled her against him. He cupped her face with his hands and slowly ran his thumb along her lower lip, exactly the way she’d imagined that first day in her kitchen, when he’d pulled her back from the nightmare. Then his lips touched hers.
    The policemen let loose with a cacophony of whistles and cheers. Abruptly breaking the kiss, Amanda looked up into Logan’s laughing eyes. She’d totally forgotten about their audience. Tears clogged her throat as she looked at Logan and saw the naked love shining in his eyes. “You saved me,” she whispered. “You saved me from a life of fear, a life of hiding, a life that . . . wasn’t a life.”
    He tenderly kissed the tears from her cheeks, his eyes suspiciously moist. “You’ve got it all wrong, Mandy. I didn’t save you. You saved me.”

 
     
    About the Author
     
    Lena grew up a Navy Brat, but while two of her three siblings followed her father’s footsteps and joined the Navy, Lena loosely followed her musically talented mother’s footsteps by choosing a more creative path, writing. Her first novel-length manuscripts were paranormals ranging from contemporary vampire stories to medieval druid tales. Since dead bodies kept creeping into everything she wrote, she eventually turned to romantic suspense. Today Lena can be found in North Florida with her husband of twenty-plus years, her belly-dancing daughter, her mud-bogging son, a tri-colored Sheltie named Sparky, and a pair of Beta fish named Rocky Bal-Beta and Mr. T.

 
     
    Copyright
     
    This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
     
    HE KILLS ME, HE KILLS ME NOT. Copyright © 2011 by Lena Diaz. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
     
    EPub Edition August 2011 ISBN: 9780062115775
     
    Print Edition ISBN: 9780062114556
     
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